Flip News
A Flip News visual explainer
How BEAD's three technologies split America's $42.45 billion broadband programme.
The winner
63–67% of funded locations (Connected Nation: 67.1%; Light Reading: about 63%; New Street Research: 68%). Still the default technology — but its share is declining as results come in.
Technology 1
Data carried as light through glass strands. The fastest, most reliable and most future-proof option — but the most expensive to build, mile for mile, in sparsely populated country.
Technology 2
Low-Earth-orbit satellite — principally Starlink and Amazon's Kuiper — took 20–23% of funded locations. It reaches anywhere with a clear view of the sky and deploys fastest, so it dominates the emptiest terrain.
Technology 3
Around 10–12% (plus roughly 2% cable). Data beamed by radio from towers to a home antenna — much quicker and cheaper to deploy than fibre, but performance fades with distance, hills and tree cover.
The rule
Whatever the technology, every BEAD-funded network must deliver at least 100 Mbps download and 20 Mbps upload, with latency of no more than 100 milliseconds.
The reason
In June 2025 NTIA scrapped BEAD's fibre preference and ordered every state to re-run bidding under technology-neutral, lowest-cost rules — the "Benefit of the Bargain" round. Cost, not ideology, drew the map.
Keep reading
Read the complete comparison on Flip News — the east–west divide, state by state, and what your county was assigned.
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Figures verified 26 September 2026Photo: Wikideas1 / Wikimedia Commons (CC0, public domain dedication)